


we're on each other's team

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Shotgunning, Super Smash Bros. Melee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-10 08:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Harry sets their sandwich in between the two of them. “Have you guys even lost a tournament since you started playing as a doubles team?”“Nope,” Louis says, popping the ‘p’ and grabbing a knife to cut the sandwich in half. “Bus 1 for life.”“Bus 1,” Zayn agrees. They fistbump softly and chuckle, and Louis almost can’t believe there was a time they weren’t a dream team.~or, the au where Zayn and Louis are a Melee doubles team, but it wasn't always like this.





	we're on each other's team

**Author's Note:**

> listen. i've talked about fics being directly ripped from my own life and this is just the latest installment of that. i've been going to a local video game cafe and occasionally hung out around the weekly melee tournament, and i had the thought that zouis would make a fantastic doubles team. so here we are. enjoy!
> 
> title is from team by lorde
> 
> (unbeta'ed forgive me)

Louis and Zayn walk through the doors laughing, the scent of cigarette smoke faint on both of their hoodies. There’s no one at the front desk to greet them, but that’s fine—they’ve been coming to the Pixel Pad every Thursday for the better part of a year. They know the drill. They head inside, past the tables of meticulously arranged PCs, past the murals of iconic video game characters painted on the walls, to the snack bar in the back.

“Chicken and provolone on wheat bread, toasted, with banana peppers on the side?” Harry grins at them from behind the counter as they walk up.

“You got it.” Louis beams and hands over his card. “Zee, want anything else?”

Zayn comes over to the counter with a can of Monster in each hand—Ultra Violet for Louis, Ultra Paradise for himself. “Nope, just the usual.” He hooks his chin over Louis’s shoulder while Louis throws a box of Pocky into their order and pays for their food.

“Must be Thursday, if you guys are here,” Harry says as he sets to work on their sandwich. He’s one of the talkative types, which Louis usually would be annoyed by, but he’s grown to appreciate Harry and his need to have a full conversation with everyone who comes into the Pad.

“Just like always.” Zayn perches on one of the tall stools and cracks his energy drink open while Louis does the same next to him. “You know if Shamrocket and Maple are gonna show this week?”

“Who’s that again?”

That’s right, Harry’s bad with remembering people’s tags. “Niall and Shawn,” Zayn supplies.

“Oh! Yesterday they told me they had dinner reservations at the Chinese place across the street for tonight, so they’ll probably be in later.”

Louis has already broken into the Pocky. Zayn reaches over and snags one; Louis doesn’t bat an eye. “I like playing them. They always give us a run for our money.”

“Pfft.” Harry sets their sandwich in between the two of them. “Have you guys even lost a tournament since you started playing as a doubles team?”

“Nope,” Louis says, popping the ‘p’ and grabbing a knife to cut the sandwich in half. “Bus 1 for life.”

“Bus 1,” Zayn agrees. They fistbump softly and chuckle, and Louis almost can’t believe there was a time they weren’t a dream team.

~

_ **TEN MONTHS EARLIER** _

Louis’ feeling pretty damn good about himself as he shakes his opponent’s hand. “Good game, bro.”

“Good game.” The guy—whose tag is Anarchist—grins as he unplugs his controller. “I can see why you’re ranked so highly in the state. Good luck in the finals.”

“Thanks.” Louis collects his things and heads over to the computer, where the tournament bracket is displayed. After he enters his score for the last match, he checks the bracket to see who he’ll be playing.

There’s a tap on his shoulder, and Louis turns around to see the tournament organizer, Liam, standing behind him. “You’re playing the winner of Shamrocket and, uh…” Liam clicks around the screen. “And Captain Zappers.”

Louis furrows his brow. “Who’s Captain Zappers?” He’s been coming here since the place opened a year ago; he knows almost everyone who comes to these tournaments. Shamrocket is an old buddy from college, but he can’t recall ever meeting a Captain Zappers in here before.

“He’s new. He just moved here from New York,” Liam tells him. “So be a good sport, won’t you?”

“I’m nothing if not a good sport,” Louis declares.

“Last week you threatened to take my controller apart and replace the insides with Cheez Whiz because you lost to my Jigglypuff.”

“Jigglypuff can get fucked and you can too, _Batdad_.”

“This is the opposite of being a good sport.”

“Would you lovebirds shut the fuck up and let me put my score in?” someone interrupts. Louis turns around to see Shamrocket standing behind him with his arms crossed.

“Niall! Did you win?” Liam asks. He’s the only person here who calls people by their actual names rather than their tags. Louis, on the other hand, is a firm believer in using tags only within these walls.

“Nah. I lost 3-1.”

Louis whistles. “The new guy kicked your ass? Who’s his main?”

“Sheik.”

Louis takes a deep breath. “So the final is me and the new guy.”

“That’s me,” drawls a new voice. Louis looks past Liam to get a glimpse of the new kid.

First of all, he looks way too cool to be in here. He’s got a black leather jacket, unzipped over a plain white t-shirt, and his hair slicked up in a style that Louis’ sister’s magazine would probably call _artfully disheveled_ or something like that. Like it took a lot of time and product to get it to look so careless. The guy looks a little like he just walked out of a production of Grease. All he’s missing is a comb.

But damn, his cheekbones. And his eyes.

Louis is in fucking trouble.

“Hey, Zayn!” Liam beams, grabbing Louis by the wrist and dragging him over to the new guy—Zayn, apparently. “This is Louis.”

“This is who I’m playing?” Louis and Zayn ask at the same time.

There’s a pause, and then Zayn asks, “_You’re_ Boobear?”

“Captain Zappers, I presume.”

“You can call me CapZap, if you want.”

“Actually, I’ll call you a second-place winner, if that’s cool with you.”

Niall _oohs_ obnoxiously. “That’s some big talk from a guy called _Boobear_,” he taunts, just to rile Louis up. Louis is going to smack that kid one day.

“You gonna talk or you wanna fight?” Zayn says, fiddling with the cable on his controller. Louis follows the movement, glancing down at it and almost gasps out loud.

“Is that Symphonic Green?” he asks in a hushed, almost reverent tone.

Zayn beams at that, his whole face lighting up. “Yeah. I got an awesome deal on Ebay a couple months ago.”

Oh, god. Now not only does Louis have the tiniest crush on his biggest competition in this room tonight, he also has controller envy. He grabs his own controller—Emerald Blue, nothing special compared to Zayn’s—and struts off to one of the TV setups. Whatever, he thinks. He’s confident that he’s skilled enough to handle whatever Zayn throws at him.

The problem, as it turns out, aren’t his skills. The problem is Zayn himself. Louis’ gaze keeps drifting from the screen to the man next to him, who’s sitting so close they knock elbows on occasion as they play. Louis took his eyes off the match for one second because is that a nose ring? only for Zayn to literally kick him off the stage.

Twenty minutes later, he trudges over to Liam’s desk.

Liam, ever the cheerful one, grins. “So? How’d it go?”

Zayn sidles up beside him, smugly wrapping the cord around his controller. “3-1, me.” He nudges Louis and has the nerve to smirk at him. “See you around, second place.”

That night, Louis swore he’d never lose to Zayn again.

~

Except he does. He loses to Zayn the next week, and the week after, and the week after that, too. By the time two months have passed, his new losing streak has bumped him out of the top five players in the state, leaving him to complain to Liam and Niall about his new ninth-place ranking.

“Hey, ninth is pretty good. That’s still top ten,” Liam points out.

“I know how numbers work,” Louis grumbles, aggressively plugging his controller in for a friendly with Niall before the tournament starts. He’s only played for a minute when he sees a shadow creep up behind him. “What,” he says without turning around.

“Hey.”

Ugh. It’s Zayn.

“What?”

“I had an idea.”

Louis is this close to throwing his controller across the room. “What?”

“Amazing vocabulary,” Zayn deadpans. “But you and me should pair up for the doubles tournament.”

Louis puts his controller down, letting Niall kick him off the stage as he turns around to face Zayn. Zayn, with his infuriating face and too-quick fingers. “Why? We’re rivals.”

“Well, yeah, but I thought it was kind of a friendly rivalry.” Zayn frowns. “Do you, like, hate me?”

“Sort of,” Louis admits. “You took my spot in the top five, you know.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Zayn says, and now he looks genuinely guilty. “I didn’t realize that.”

Niall scoffs. “Don’t be sorry. Louis just has to get better.”

“But you’re still one of the strongest players here,” Zayn continues. “And that’s why I think we’d be a good team. Give it a try?”

Louis pauses, glancing at Niall, who shrugs. What’s one doubles game going to do? Niall calls Liam over, and it’s those two against Louis and Zayn. Louis steadfastly ignores the way Zayn’s hand brushes against his as he plugs in his controller. He’s no touch-starved loser.

Zayn turns out to be absolutely right. He and Louis demolish Niall and Liam, claiming victory in less than ten minutes. Louis cackles as he watches Liam’s Jigglypuff fall off the stage to its death.

“Well, what do you know? We do make a good team.” And Zayn offers Louis a smile that he’s never seen before. It’s not the smug ‘I’ve just won again’ smile, or the ‘Liam’s made a stupid joke’ smile. This is a new one.

Louis smiles back. “I guess we do.”

Encouraged by their win again Niall and Liam, they enter the doubles tournament together, and crush every team in their path.

“Shit,” Liam whistles as he doles out the prize money. “You guys could’ve been cleaning up earlier if you weren’t caught up in your rivalry.”

“Louis was caught up in the rivalry. I was just playing.” Zayn reaches out to poke Louis’ waist.

Louis yelps, jerking away and almost dropping the stack of fives Liam handed him. “Fuck off!”

He doesn’t bother staying behind to help Liam clean up—instead, he wanders outside to light a cigarette and wait for his bus home. It’s late now, nearing midnight. The neon signs of the ramen shop across the street are out, and the comic book store’s sign is flipped to ‘CLOSED.’ The public tram screeches on its rails as it glides past, the cars mostly empty. The city’s begun to go to sleep.

He takes a drag, shuffles back to lean against the outside of the building.

“Hey, Lou.” The door closes behind Zayn as he steps outside with a pack of Newport cigarettes. “You got a light?”

Louis hands it over. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“You don’t know much about me outside of here, huh?”

Louis shrugs. “I don’t know much about anyone outside of here,” he mumbles.

“Maybe not everyone, but Niall and Liam, yeah.”

Zayn’s bluntness, delivered so casually, makes Louis pause. “They’re friends from college.”

“Hmm.” Zayn passes the lighter back once his cigarette is lit. “Don’t you ever want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Know more about the people you play with?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes, I guess.” Louis shrugs again and checks his phone for the time. “Oh, fuck. I gotta go if I want to catch the bus home.”

“Which bus do you take?”

“I take the 1.”

Zayn grins. “Me, too.”

“Bus buddies,” Louis says without thinking of how childish it sounds. But it makes Zayn’s smile grow, so he doesn’t correct himself, and tells himself the pleasant feeling in his chest is just because of the cash in his pocket.

~

_ **PRESENT** _

At the end of the night, Liam pops the cash box open and grabs a wad of twenties. “First prize is $140 to Bus 1,” he says, handing a small stack to Louis and Zayn, “and $80 for second place to Eight Iron.”

“Hell yeah!” Niall whoops as Shawn takes the cash. “I can finally get _Pokemon Sword_.”

“I thought you were getting _Shield_,” Liam says.

“No, Shawn’s gonna get _Shield_ and I’m gonna get _Sword_ and then we’ll trade.”

While the three of them chatter, Zayn and Louis glance at each other, smiles small and secret. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Zayn says.

“You know it.”

Two hours later, they’re curled up on the couch in their apartment, a ratty old fleece blanket covering their entwined legs. The room is thick with the smell of weed, the only light on the blueish glow of the idle TV. Zayn takes a hit and beckons Louis close. It takes a little effort to get to Zayn, as tangled up as they are, but Louis finds a way there, like he always does, to part his lips and let Zayn exhale the smoke into his mouth.

“Love you, Zee,” Louis tells him, even though at this point words are redundant.

Zayn flops around until he can nuzzle into Louis’ neck. “Love you too,” he says back. “Even though you main Marth.”

“You love me _because _I main Marth.”

“Sure.”

Louis grabs a Joy-Con off the side table; the movement wakes the TV up, and the console menu comes up. “Best of 5, regular rules?”

“Gimme.” Zayn makes a feeble effort to reach for a controller. Louis delivers one right into his hands.

Zayn wins. He swears he’s just that good; Louis maintains it’s purely luck and that if stage hazards hadn’t knocked him off the edge, he’d have won. But he just swears he’ll get Zayn next time, even as he sinks to his knees in front of the couch and tugs Zayn’s joggers down. 

Those are the rules, after all, and Louis is nothing if not a good sport.

**Author's Note:**

> did you spot the yungblud reference? o.o as always, thank you for reading!


End file.
